


after three bells

by whalersandsailors



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Comforting & Distracting Each Other from All the Bad, Drinking, Episode: s01e06 A Mercy, First Kiss, Flirting, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Missing Scene, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:28:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29168850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whalersandsailors/pseuds/whalersandsailors
Summary: Dr MacDonald insists that Tom rest.
Relationships: Thomas Jopson/Alexander McDonald
Comments: 8
Kudos: 15
Collections: The Terror Bingo, The Terror Rarepair Week 2021





	after three bells

**Author's Note:**

> a terror bingo fill for the prompt **insomnia** as well as TRPW's prompt **stolen moments**
> 
> I have been meaning to write a fic for macca & jopson for a while now :)

Most of the crew are asleep, but Tom hasn't the time nor the effort to sleep himself. He has situated himself in a chair by the stove, his feet propped onto the bench under the window. Through the fog of his fatigue, he hears the clang of the bell on deck, masking the footsteps approaching the great cabin.

“You’re spreading yourself rather thin, Mr Jopson.”

Tom almost believes he must have imagined the voice, but with a slow blink, he turns to the door. Seeing Dr MacDonald there, he smiles and gestures for MacDonald to join him. A lapse in protocol that would have horrified a Mr Jopson of two years ago. But it is late, and he is tired. He can’t remember when he last slept for more than a half hour.

“There aren’t many of us left,” he muses as MacDonald pulls up a second chair by the stove. “Aren’t we all overburdened?”

MacDonald hums, tilting his head in a half-nod. He holds his hands up to the stove, wincing as he rubs feeling back into the tips of his fingers.

“Perhaps. But then again, you and I share a heavier burden. And Lieutenant Little.” His eyes travel to the frosted black window behind the stove. “Captain Fitzjames, as well, though I believe he is spared the worst of it on _Erebus_.”

“He has troubles of a different kind.”

“Quite right. That he does.”

They lapse into silence, the warmth from the stove lulling Tom into a sort of reverie. His eyes are heavy, the edges of his vision softening as his head dips forward. How easily he might fall asleep right here, curled on the floor by the stove like a ship’s dog.

The thought makes him laugh, the sound catching in his nose. He snorts, head snapping up. His feet slide from the bench with a thud. He clears his throat, sits up straight, avoids MacDonald’s gaze.

“Is there something you needed, doctor?” he asks, his attention focused on the fire. “Captain Crozier is well tonight. Deepest sleep he’s had all week. He may very well sleep ‘til morning.”

“That’s good to hear,” MacDonald agrees. “But I wanted to check how you were doing.”

Tom pauses, giving MacDonald a sideways glance. “I’m well enough, sir.”

“Are you resting at all? I haven’t seen you anywhere near your cabin for anything more than fresh rags or to comb your hair.”

“I rest when I can.”

“But not enough.”

Tom’s patience is cracking, and he turns to face MacDonald, his smile polite but brittle. “Sir, it is—if I heard the bell right—somewhere short of two o’clock in the morning. You ask if I sleep enough, yet I could ask you the same.”

MacDonald’s eyes crinkle from a smile that barely lifts his lips. He lets out a little sniff of a laugh. “Fair enough. Though if I may be so bold, Mr Jopson, I would like to take a moment of your time. If the captain can spare you, that is.”

“Nothing serious, I hope?”

“Oh, nothing of the kind.” Here, he diverts his face; a surprisingly bashful display from the otherwise candid man. “Might we go somewhere more private? The wardroom perhaps? We wouldn’t disturb the captain there.”

“Very well.”

All this has quite captured Tom’s curiosity, if anything for the unusualness of MacDonald’s request. He wonders what he must have to show him, a specimen, something out of a medical book pertaining to the captain’s condition? He cannot begin to guess what MacDonald has in the wardroom that he cannot share in the great cabin, but dutifully, Tom follows him into the passageway around the tight corner to the adjacent room.

The wardroom is empty, the light from a single lamp glinting off the shined silver neatly stacked on the narrow sideboard inset in the wall. The two cabin doors—Mr Helpman’s vacant and dark, a faint glow through the slats of Dr MacDonald’s—are both shut. And on the table nearest MacDonald’s cabin door is a green liquor bottle and two tin cups borrowed from the galley.

“What’s this?” Tom asks, sensible enough to close the wardroom door behind himself.

MacDonald holds the bottle up, pulling out a chair for Tom.

“Something I’ve been saving for a while. I thought it would be nice for a day, or night, such as this.”

“Is that from your personal store?” Tom circles around the table. He can smell the strong unctuous odor of the wine. For a moment, it turns his stomach, and he places the flat of his palm onto the table to keep his balance.

MacDonald immediately sets the bottle down and goes to him. He loosely wraps his arm around Tom’s middle to keep him steady.

“I’m sorry,” he starts, “I didn’t… I didn’t consider that it might upset you.”

Tom shakes his head, lets himself be seated in the chair. “No, it’s all right.”

“Here—” MacDonald grabs the cups as though to dispose of them, but Tom stops him with a hand on his arm.

“A drink sounds wonderful, doctor. Please.”

A moment’s hesitation. “Well, if you’re sure.” He pours a small amount into each cup. “The last thing I want is for you to be uncomfortable.”

Tom smiles wanly at him, accepting the cup with a nod. “That’s kind of you.”

MacDonald holds his cup up. “Shall we toast?”

Tom snorts against the edge of the cup. The longer he smells the wine, the more pleasant its aroma becomes.

“To wives and sweethearts?” he jokes.

With a feigned scoff, MacDonald waves his hand. “To something more pressing: to winter’s end and a forgiving spring.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Tom murmurs with a sip. “What with first sunrise on its way, it’s hard to believe we’ll have some light again.”

He glances at the skylight over their heads, the rectangle inky black. Even if there weren’t a layer of frost on the glass, the canopy on deck would blot out any stars, moonlight.

“Indeed,” says MacDonald. “I fear I haven’t any sense of time in the darker months.”

“Hard to work or to rest.”

“Yes.”

There are signs that it is night, however. The quiet breathing of the ship as the hammocks creak in the forecastle. Only two pairs of feet on deck for the watch. No sound of Diggle throwing dough on the table or clanging pots as he melts ice, no singing or fiddle playing from deeper in the ship. It could be peaceful if Tom didn’t find the quiet damned infuriating. Having lived all his boyhood in a rookery with paper-thin walls and another red-faced child always an arm’s reach away, he’s discovered that it is the very same noise and lack of space that feels so familiar on ship.

“Are you getting enough sleep?” MacDonald tries the question again, though he sounds more like a concerned friend than a dispassionate doctor this time. “I’ve always wondered how on earth you make yourself comfortable in your cupboard of a berth.”

“I have a hammock. As comfortable as a bird’s nest.”

The wine warms his stomach, fuzzies his tongue. Tom could just as easily stretch himself on the wardroom table and sleep, if need be. He starts when MacDonald removes his empty cup from him.

“I don’t mean to be untoward at all, but if you would like a proper sleep, you may have my cabin for the night. I can watch over the captain until morning.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Tom says, raising his face to MacDonald, exhaustion making him bold, “if you _did_ mean something untoward.”

MacDonald holds his gaze for a beat then finishes his wine. He sets the cup carefully onto the table, the tin soundless on the dense wood. When he reaches for Tom’s hand, Tom lets him take it, watching as MacDonald brings the back of his hand to his lips. He lays a single kiss on top of the pale spiderweb of veins crisscrossing the delicate skin. He then turns Tom’s hand over and kisses the palm in the center.

“I would rather,” he murmurs against Tom’s skin, “that you have ample time to rest. That was the main purpose of my coming to you.”

Tom shrugs a single shoulder, curling his fingers up until they brush against the underside of MacDonald’s chin. He plucks his hand away and stands.

“Well I always sleep better after a good frigging,” he says, smiling as he adds a cheeky, “Doctor.”

MacDonald lets out a soft, startled laugh. “I won’t deny you then.”

Tom primly folds his hands behind himself as the doctor corks the bottle, leaves the cups pushed together on the tabletop. He goes to his cabin door, sliding it open, showing a tidy cabin with the bed made, a single candle on the desk, nothing personal on the walls but a few borrowed novels sitting on the shelf, their embossed titles glimmering from the yellow light. MacDonald steps aside, gesturing for Tom to enter before him as he returns to the table and extinguishes the lamp.

The wardroom is pitched into darkness, and Tom—for all his teasing—suddenly feels as though he is balancing along the railing of the ship beside a stormy, capricious sea. One wrong step, and he would plummet into the ocean’s depths.

When MacDonald rests his hand on the small of his back, he tenses briefly before relaxing with a sigh.

“I must warn you,” Tom says, swallowing his nerves, “that I smell like a sickroom.”

Another mild laugh from MacDonald. “And where do you think I work all day?”

Still, neither of them move into the cabin despite how inviting that clean, well-kept space looks to Tom.

“Perhaps I should check on the captain just once more…”

He shudders when MacDonald kisses the back of his shoulder, the fringe of his hair brushing the back of his neck.

“There is only a single wall separating my cabin from his,” he murmurs against Tom’s waistcoat. “There’s no need to fret, Mr Jopson. If he calls, you will hear him.”

Of course he’s correct, and a wave of pleasure courses through Tom again as MacDonald presses his hand on his side, right at his waist.

“Yes, you’re right.”

He turns in MacDonald’s arms, reaching for the lapels of his coat as he kisses him. Taken by surprise, MacDonald pauses before embracing Tom. They maneuver into the cabin, never breaking their kiss for more than a few seconds, and with a grateful sigh against MacDonald’s lips, Tom slides the door shut behind them.


End file.
